


Dancing With Myself

by MASCOT3000



Category: MarsCorp (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/F, F/M, Pre-Canon, Rememberance, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 10:18:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18602515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MASCOT3000/pseuds/MASCOT3000
Summary: Hob finds an old box under her bed and remembers a party.





	Dancing With Myself

Hob stumbled into her quarters. She felt the weight of fatigue pushing her down onto the bed. She’d been exhausted the last few days. Her panic attacks were coming back with more frequency and intensity. Now she was too exhausted to cry. 

She folded like a rag doll in a chair. The bed of her new quarters was too big, too empty and whenever she lay in it she felt like a fly investigating the inside of a Venus fly trap as though at any moment the bed would close in upon her and snap shut. This feeling became especially poignant when she let go of control over her thoughts. 

Resting an elbow on the arm rest Hob places her head in her hand, pressing against her eyelids. Over time she came to cope with the loss of her family, her friends and everything she’d known to be familiar and safe. But she never expected to carry the weight of the entire human race on her shoulders. She never wanted to that. Hob had wanted a promotion and damn it she got it. It was crippling. She felt her stomach lurch at the magnitude of responsibility and she keeled over in the chair. 

Dry, heaving breaths accompanied by cold sweats left Hob immobilised for several minutes. Her vision lost focus as she sat there ready to vomit. She tried to ground herself. Focus on the chair. It’s cool metal with pointless holes littering the back and seat, the texture not at all comfortable. How the lip of the seat ended in a smooth round piece of metal on which her upper thighs rested. The sound it made whenever she adjusted her position. 

Once she had calmed down somewhat her vision returned to normal. Still folded over she saw something hastily kicked under the bed behind her. It didn’t register to her what it was but nonetheless she slid out of the chair and pulled the box from its hiding place. Kneeling on the floor she looked at the damaged cardboard and realised it was the same box Jim had given her. Her breath caught as she looked at it. The last remnants of Earth, tucked away in a little cardboard box under a bed. Hob didn’t genuinely count the Culture Department partially due to the numerous mistakes and misinformation in there and partially due to Maximilian John having to kick her out when she passed out drunk in the cartography section. He was a prick anyways, she reasoned to herself when the hangover passed. 

As she began to open it she stopped. Something wouldn’t let her. There were photographs in there. Photographs of places that were now ash, photographs of people whose existence only survived in her dim memories. Looking at a world surviving only in a screen made her stomach churn. But she was tired of seeing the faces of the dead exclusively whenever she closed her eyes. 

Gingerly she opened the box. Rollerblades, makeup and at the bottom was her tablet, it’s black screen reflecting Hob’s grim face back up at her. She stared into her tired and bloodshot eyes before picking it up. She wiped a hand over the screen out of habit before turning it on. It still held some charge - it wasn’t as though Hob had used it up until now. Always too busy. No room for wallowing. 

Opening the Images app she sat on the floor and scrolled slowly through the pictures. There was her sister on her wedding day, Hob standing behind her as a bridesmaid. She smiled at how much she had fussed about how her red dress was too tight. There was a short clip of the reception. She played it. 

“Yo, Em! I’m fucking married! Woo!” Her sister grew her arms up and laughed. Hob laughed with her. Not at the time, though. Her envy towards her sister was overtaken, now, by a profound sense of loss. She missed her laugh and replayed the clip a few times as the two laughed together across centuries. 

There were a few videos of the reception. The thumbnail on one gave Hob pause. It was a blurred frame of her, her sister and her wife, a few friends and Adam. Immediately she knew what this video was. She lifted herself onto the edge of her bed and breathed. She hit “play.” 

“No, Dad! Hold it the other way - wait - yeah, there you go, Dad! Emily, did you request the song?”   
“Yes.”   
“Aw, c’mon, Em! You said ‘Oldies’ was a good wedding theme! I took your advice, man!”  
“I... I didn’t kn - “   
The music changed, drowning out whatever Hob was going to say next. There was a guitar riff and it took Hob a moment to remember the song her sister wanted requested.   
‘Oh, that’s right,’ she thought. “Dancing With Myself” blared through the speakers. Her sister cheered and was promptly swept up by her wife. Adam looked amused as he bowed and extended a hand.   
“Emily Lexi Hob, may I have this dance?”   
“Jesus Christ, Adam.” Her tone was annoyed but she couldn’t help the smile that threatened to upturn her lips. Grinning she took his hand. 

Hob paused the video. She took a moment to take in everyone’s smiling faces. Her own face in the screen seemed like an entirely different person. Gone were the dark bags under her eyes, a light in her eyes suggesting she still held a lust for life. Hob let out a short, crisp laugh. She was never going to get that life back. But she could pretend. 

Perching the tablet on the table, Hob stood facing it and resumed the tape. She looked at the forms of herself dancing closely with Adam. She could feel how they moved and swayed to the music. She tried imagining what it was likes to feel another’s weight against her own as they carved shapes. She closed her eyes and smiled. 

She shook her head, hair flying about wildly, arms twisting above her head as she spun herself around and as her ankles crossed and she spun and shook and clapped and held hands that weren’t there. The rest of the world began to fade away - no more shitty quarters, no cold walls, no sounds of robots outside, nothing. 

Hob was smiling. Her face began to ache but all she cared about in that moment was reliving that one single moment. Her shirt clung to her back and chest and her face was hot and slick with sweat. And she laughed. 

Then the song came to an end. The Martian world snapped back and Hob felt as though she’d been hit with a slingshot. Her smile faded and she slowly lowered her arms. The video was still playing. 

“Tell everyone you love them, Em!” Adam had his arm wrapped around her waist. The Hob in the video scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Come on, love!” She giggled and looked straight into the camera. 

“I love you, sis! Congratulations, Bean Stalk!” Bean Stalk... A bittersweet melancholy forced the corners of her mouth to turn slightly upwards. She reached for the tablet on the table as Adam’s voice came through the speaker. 

“Aw, come on!” He gave her a little shake. Hob laughed and gave Adam a mock punch. 

“Fine, fine! Mum, I love you! And Dad,” she slid away from Adam’s embrace and closer to the camera, “I love you too, Dad. Thanks for everything.” The camera angle switched awkwardly and Hob could just make out the embrace between herself and her father. The latter’s face was difficult to see in the frame but she remembered how he smiled and held his daughter with nothing but unconditional love. The camera slipped and fell to the floor and the last frame was of Adam, Hob’s father and herself looking down at it smiling as the video was stopped. 

Hob fell back onto her bed. She held the tablet against her chest, trying to imagine what it was like to be held by people she loved and who loved her. She let out a small sob and closed her eyes. 

“I love you, Dad.” 

Her sleep was deep and dreamless.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, this story took me forever to write. Good lord. Well here it is! I’m still gonna work this angst train until I think of something funny. Thanks for reading!


End file.
